jives

Noun

jive (countable and uncountable, plural jives)

1. (uncountable) A dance style popular in the 1940–50s.
2. (uncountable) Swing, a style of jazz music.
3. (uncountable) A slang associated with jazz musicians; hepcat patois or hipster jargon.
   • Then the loud sound did seem to fade / Came back like a slow voice on a wave of phase / That weren't no DJ, that was hazy cosmic jive1972, “Starman”, in The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, performed by David Bowie
4. (US, colloquial) Synonym of bullshit: patent nonsense, transparently deceptive talk.
   • Don’t give me that jive. I know where you were last night.

   Synonyms:

   flummery, bullshit

5. (US, colloquial, derogatory, often) African-American Vernacular English.
   • Although speaking Western Japanese to your friends in Ōsaka, Kyōto, or Kōbe will allow you to get closer to them, speaking Western Japanese in Tōkyō might seem as outlandish as hearing a Japanese exchange student back home speaking jive or cockney.1993, Peter Tse, Kansai Japanese: The Language of Osaka, Kyoto, and Western Japan: This Japanese Phrasebook and Language Guide Teaches the Kansai Dialect, Tuttle Publishing, →ISBN, page 17
6. (dated, slang) Marijuana

See all 10 meanings of jive